Embodiments of the invention described in this specification relate generally to captioning systems, and more particularly, to synchronized captions for scripted live performances.
Hearing impaired audience members require captions for live performances. Live or real-time captions are used to make live or fast turn-around programs accessible. Unlike offline captions created for prerecorded programs, captions created for live broadcast are not timed or positioned and rarely convey information other than the spoken dialogue. The inability to synchronize captions with a live performance makes it difficult for the hearing impaired audience. There is also no way to pause, backup, and resume the captions to allow a hearing impaired person to catch missed captions and context.
The two methods for captioning live programming include stenographic systems and manual live display. In a stenographic system, a “stenocaptioner” (a specially trained court reporter) watches and listens to the program as it airs and types every word as it is spoken. The stenocaptioner uses a special stenographic keyboard to type as many as 250 words per minute. A computer translates the “steno” into English text formatted as captions. The caption data is then sent to an encoder and displayed on a screen. This approach does not take advantage of a script and is recreating what the person is saying. This approach requires specialized personnel, with the cost of personnel and equipment being rather high. The approach also suffers from up to three to five second lag time between spoken work and captions. Furthermore, phonetic errors are common with this approach.
On the other hand, in a manual live display system, text is entered before the performance and displayed live at the time of the performance. Computer software products are available for creating live-display captions. Text for live display is often obtained by downloading it ahead of time or transcribing the audio of prerecorded segments. This approach has no easy way to synchronize with a live performance and, therefore, may require some type of human intervention to synchronize the captions during a live performance.
Therefore, what is needed is a way to provide accurate real-time captioning to a scripted live performance.